My
Square
Eyes

  The other night when me and my friend Svedlund played a round of Rush in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 with a third guy we met through the game, my friend asked him why he speaks so quietly upon which he replies: "My kids are sleeping in the next room". Svedlund was very surprised by the answer and when we talked about it later, he told me it sounded so very old to say that you're keeping your voice down in a Xbox Live chat to not wake your kids up. I started to think about what he said about this video gaming father and the fact that we're not kids anymore. But when did that happen? The way from my childhood, through teenage and up to adulthood seems so short and even if we've changed, we're still the same in the end. We still play video games and avoid growing up too much.

  All those kids growing up in the 70's, 80's and even the early 90's have grown up now. All those who played video games and still play them have gone through school, they have jobs and possibly families now. But they're still gamers and that is fascinating! In the 90's, video games were intended to be played by kids, developed to be enjoyed by 10 year olds (boys) and games meant for older audiences were scarce. The scene has changed now and we actually see games being targeted to adults and by "adults" I mean people from 20 to 80. We have brain training games (Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training), we have games that activate you physically (Wii Fit Plus) and we have intriguing story driven games (Heavy Rain). This evolution of video game market is interesting and very promising for the media of video games! People grow and find new things they like, they need new kinds of games to keep their interest. Having a wider range of video game genres to choose from will also establish video games as a serious part of modern life.

  But I digress. The thing I mostly thought about when my friend and I talked about the third guy's fatherhood was that I might have kids some day. Will I also become a father who, after tucking the kids in at night, goes online and starts killing virtual Russian soldiers a couple of hours before bed (gotta get up early to work the next day)? It's almost scary thinking about it. Becoming that guy is far, far away from where I am now. Today, I turned 23 years old. Nothing worth making a big deal out of but... My own father was 23 when mom first got pregnant with my big sister. That puts this birthday in a new perspective. "Growing up" is a loose term and saying it implies nothing without context. For now, I'm glad being a 23 year old kid-youth-adult-thingy. At least for one more year.

Travis DG Edna